The idol of offense.

Posted on By pukeko

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I did not know where to start today’s blog. There has been a storm in the kiwi corner of the blogverse, for Whaleoil (which is by far the biggest site in NZ) has been taken down by DDOS, and Cameron Slater, who writes it, has had threats against himself and his family. So I am starting with a post about the Pope, and America.

I used to think that sex–or untrammelled sexual autonomy, anyhow–was the pre-eminent idol of North America. Thanks to Pope Francis and the visceral, violent reaction to him, I’m seeing more clearly that in fact it is money. Or perhaps it is most accurate to say that it is unfettered self-will, either by the absolute right to do whatever we like with the one thing in our pants (i.e., our wallets) or, well, the other.

The good Catholic Father who wrote this is correct: Francis’ teaching on money is to these reformed eyes quite convoluted and relies on twisting the words of the scriptures a fair way. But the howls from the right about any criticism of their greed tell you there is an idol there.

But in NZ the idol is that of personal comfort. If you call someone out, if you confront them…. people go personal.

Cameron and I have at times emailed each other over the years. I disagree with some of his stands. He’s rude, abrasive and effective. He has broken a dozen or so major stories on his blog that the main papers in NZ had ignored. Cam had made some trenchant comments about a man who fled the scene from a lethal car crash. He called such people feral: they returned the favour by calling him words one should not repeat, because he should not judge them.

Well, Jesus had some words on this. Around Judgment. Today’s scripture is one of those bits of the bible that will make your head hurt, because Christ talks about the Trinity: but at the end he talks about what will happen — that all will be judged. We will all be exposed. This will give all of us cause for offense, if offense merely means that our feelings are hurt.

John 5:19-29

19Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. 22The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

25“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

If one can take this a step further, we can see why the Catholic capitalists are so offended by the current Pope. For Christ was given authority to Judge, and the then told Peter that the keys of heaven were given to the church… to bind and to free. This is why the Anathasian starts


WHOEVER wishes to be saved must, above all, keep the Catholic faith.
For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever.

If you are Roman then you are taught that the pope can at times speak with the full authority, with infallibility, so what he says really matters. Now, I think this is again, a bit like Francis’ sermons: twisting scripture too far. It is too great a power for any one man: the church exists within the denominations, marketplaces and countries of this world and there is clear teaching that this universal (catholic means universal) visible church has many who are not of Christ in it.

However, the very reaction to Francis is illuminating. It points our where people have their own idols. Francis is soft on sexual sin and homosexuality: Benedict was less so. Benedict was damned by the liberal left. Francis is hard on economic injustice, Benedict less so. The Right are starting to despise him. The fact that both men are trying to preach the gospel in this fallen times is lost to secular ears.

But that is most of the West, and NZ is Middle Earth. Here, the idol is self esteem. It is that no one dare criticize anything I do, and indeed that the government should sort out any mistakes I make, so that I and my children do not suffer. We do not want our feelings hurt. We call that hate speech, and when someone does something like that they are howled down on facebook, and twitter, with the most disgusting tweets (Cameron has gone to the police because this has gone beyond doxing to active threats to kill him and assault in the most vile ways his family. On facebook). As John Banks noted, from his own experience and childhood, there is a bleak, violent, gothic (in the bad sense) streak in the NZ psyche that comes to the fore when someone calls these things out.

But we need to. We have tried being understanding, we have tried subsidizing people to live on the dole, to the point that being on the dole could give a better income than working (won’t happen: the party who proposed it, Labour, also suggested yesterday that Facebook and other multinationals be “banned from the internet” if they do not pay taxes. Which would be impossible: the internet interprets restrictions as damage and routes around them).

But this morning I am shamed of my nation. For the correct response to exposure or confrontation is self-reflection, self-reform: in short, repentance. But parts of my society have an idol of offense, and worship it by screaming at people to shut up, using force early, frequently and often.

____

PS. I don’t like Kim Dot Com, although I get some amusement when the FBI loses extradition hearings in the local courts. But he can be correct, and in his tweet today he is.